4 out of 4 stars
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The 11.05 Murders by Brain O’Hare is a fast-paced mystery/crime novel set in Northern Ireland. Following the perspectives of Denise Stewart, a female sergeant who has struggled through years of harassment and gender discrimination in a corrupt police department, Inspector Sheehan, her new boss, and Tom Allen, her new partner, we see her work through her first case as a newly promoted detective. Beginning with the murder of James Fitzpatrick, a not so innocent victim, we are led through a maze of leads, suspects and revelations that ultimately puts Stewart's life in danger.
In my opinion, mystery and crime is one of the hardest genres to write in, and O’Hare does a brilliant job in keeping the mystery until near the very end! By the time I was halfway through The 11.05 Murders, I still didn’t know who the killer was, I could only guess. The constant speculation around all of the suspects really threw me off. By the last few chapters, I had a pretty good guess, but that was the best thing about it, the fact that I could still only guess.
Written beautifully with short chapters that keep you turning the pages, the story moves very quickly, jumping between various suspects and following every lead. One of the main things that I loved about this novel was that Sheehan, Stewart and Allen all had different ideas about why Fitzpatrick was murdered and who the killer might be, each one plausible. O’Hare made sure to throw out a bunch of different suspects and leads so that no clear path was shown to the reader, because when that happens, the identity of the killer is all too easy to guess. The only certainty I had throughout the novel was that the identity was directly linked to the very first scene of the novel, the sexual assault of Lynda Bell that happened twelve years ago.
When Lynda Bell popped up in the present day murder, I felt sure that it would be a straight shot from there, but even then O’Hare only gives us to barest thread to cling to, in the form broken cufflinks and a picture of Lynda with a newspaper clipping. Safe to say I was completely lost on how Stewart would manage to make a solid connection to the murders, which made me want to keep reading without stopping to find out!
The 11.05 Murders is actually the second book is what is called The Inspector Sheehan Mysteries, which I was a little surprised at since O’Hare spread the narrative focus across a few different characters, not solely on Sheehan. Either way, I was very happy to find this out and will be definitely reading the other books in this series!
In the end, the only critique I really have for this book is that the ending felt slightly rushed with everything happening in the space of an hour or two. Sheehan piecing together the clues and having his sherlock moment, to taking down the killer at the last second. Although I was proven right about the identity of the killer, I didn’t feel the anti-climatic “oh, thats it” but instead the very satisfying, “I knew it!”. Which is really what makes a great mystery novel, which is why I'm giving this 4 out of 4 stars.
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The 11.05 Murders
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